The Hatfield Hotel — Hotel in East Suffolk

First of all I have given 5 stars for the rooms, but I didn't stay at the Hatfield, merely went in for lunch. I would hope they are worthy of the 5 stars as my experience was not.

I have been to the Hatfield a couple of times previous and the experiences weren't the absolute best, but also not the worst. They weren't like the one I had end of last week though.

Me and my friend were having a walk along the beach and thought it would be nice to have lunch. We popped in and got a table straight away, which was great. We ordered a drink each at the bar, no issues. Then looked for a menu, there wasn't one on our table or any tables nearby. We went back to the bar and managed to get one from one of the staff members. When we wanted to order I went to the bar to order for us both. The lady at the bar asked for the table number, but I had already thought about this and had already looked for one, but there wasn't one. I pointed at where my friend sat and she noted a number down. When she went to put the order through the till, the beef lasagne (which we both ordered) wasn't there. Someone came over and said that the new menu hadn't been added to the till yet. Which caused the poor lady to become quite embarrassed and a queue was starting to form behind me. I was patient and kind and said to take her time, these things happen. She put it through as something the same price and said, if they bring this order over, let them know what you actually ordered.

When the lasagne (x2) did arrive, we were shocked at the difference in sizes of lasagne slices. My friend had a lovely size piece, that was thick and looked nice. Mine on the other hand was thin and hardly no way near the same size as my friend's. I wouldn't normally say anything, but this was a massive difference. I would have taken a photo but I was too busy trying to convince the waitress that this wasn't acceptable. She didn't even apologise to me, just agreed they were different. She even said that my friend could slice hers up and give me some of hers - not good enough, I'm afraid. She paid for her lasagne, same as me and if that's the actual portion then why should she have to do that?

She went to speak to the chef and eventually came back and said I had the last piece, which was why it was so small. Surely, knowing it was coming to the same table, they would have said they had run out of lasagne? Or shared the last 2 portions evenly? Eventually she offered me something for free. (Dessert or garlic bread). I couldn't have a dessert and let my friend just sit there so I chose garlic bread. While we waited for that to arrive, we ate. My friends lasagne was burnt black on the bottom layer (mine wasn't, which was strange). She didn't eat all of it due to this. She had no tomato in her side salad and I had no onion. The lasagne was tough to eat. The garlic bread eventually came out after we had eaten, again with no apology. The bread was raw. My friend refused to eat it. I merely ate it to try to make up for the poor lasagne.

The whole time there was also a black cat wandering around. One lady pointed it out to the staff but no-one removed it. I later noted that the manager later took it outside.

We walked out after and won't return again unfortunately.

It's a shame this happened as it's in such a good location, overlooking the beach and a nice distance when going for a walk. If there was some sort of apology given, I may have thought...

Executive Suite is definitely NOT executive. Best Western customer service disgraceful!! I used tesco vouchers to stay here in August 2023. Firstly, not impressed that price for executive room was about £30 less on Best Western than the link we had to use to process the tesco voucher code. This was NOT because of any special deals either. That in itself is very wrong! The hotel was breing re-painted externally and was looking nice. Staff seemed friendly. Good point was that the room was big and sea view was lovely. When we entered the executive suite we were greeted by a musty smell. The windows were all open and as a result there were many many tiny flies over all the windows. TV mount was for a much larger TV, as shown on room picture when selecting it, but the TV on the mount was only about 32inch. Carpet wasn't fitted well. Lots of loose rolls. Curtains smelt very dusty. Bathroom floor tiles had many areas with lots of grout missing making them feel sharp underfoot in places. Some floor tiles made cracking noises as walked over. Shower section had a shower head that was in absolute desperate need of a good clean. Very brownish looking and yuk. Bath was fine. Various items of furniture in the room didn't match and whilst the curtains and bedspread visually looked fine, this was most certainly not an executive looking or feeling room at all. We did ask at reception if we could change rooms but were categorically told none were available. Strange as the hotel did not seem busy. We asked about fly spray for the fly issue but again, no joy and not really interested about the issue or sorting anything for us at all. Very dissappointing lack of customer service. Breakfast was nice and tasty but the extras were expensive. When we gave feedback to Best Western we were told we should have complained on the day. We told them we had but nothing was done. Equally, Best Western have done nothing to refund or compensate after the fact either, all they said was they have plenty of returning guests. Disgraceful attitude. This is most certainly NOT good customer service and ultimately if you book an executive room it should be an executive experience and it definitely wasn't. Also, whilst I have cats and love my cats, I do not expect to see a cat roaming a restaurant area. No mention of it on the hotel website and no consideration if any guest are allergic. Because of the room condition, how nothing was sorted, a ridiculous very poor response from Best western from there feedback team and the fact the room cost more via Tesco link as opposed to Best Western site, I DO NOT recommend this hotel or Best Western. If Best western feedback team had done something to compensate/refund me i might have chalked it up to poor location choice but seeing as the feedback representative was equally devoid of customer service and not at all bothered whether the experience reflected very negatively on Best western, I wouldn't recommend Best Western at all. Go use a Premier Inn Plus Room instead, a...

I booked the Elizabeth suite as it was the only room left to book at this hotel. When we checked in and entered the room it was clear that the room hadn't been cleaned properly. There were dead flies on every window sill, dirty prints on the windows, light switches were dirty, skirting boards not wiped, the table was dirty and the carpet hadn't been hoovered in places. I then went to check the bathroom and found that the bathroom hadn't been cleaned properly. The bath had hairs in it, towel rail hadn't been wiped down, bath panel was dirty, the shower screen hadn't been cleaned, the shower base, hose and taps weren't clean, the floor was dirty, all the taps hadn't been wiped and polished, and there was a thick cobweb on the window in the bathroom. I reported the issues and the supervisor of cleaning said it was nathan that had cleaned the room, as i was telling her what wasn't clean it was obvious that she was not listening to what needed rectifying in the room. I had taken photos of the dirty things and showed them to the receptionist the supervisor saw some of the photos but didn't seem bothered to actually look at what was wrong. Did the supervisor need to pass the blame on to an employee? The hotel states that it has high cleaning standards. Having seen the the dirty rooms, this is not true. This hotel has poor cleaning standards. The supervisor said she was happy to rectify the cleaning errors. When i returned to my room the dead flies had gone the shower base had been cleaned, the towel rail had been wiped, the floor had been cleaned and the carpet had been hoovered. The rest had been left. Should the hotel expect people to stay in a dirty room? After leaving the room the next morning to check out, we could see clean bedding and towels on the floor on the landing. Guests are expected to use those sheets and towels after they have been on the floor, the hand rail and doors were sticky too, is this part of the hotel having high cleaning standards? If the table and light switches were marked and not dirty why were they not replaced when the hotel was apparently lovingly restored and refurbished? We was told we would have complimentary drinks from the bar for the 4 of us 2 adults and 2 children. When asking for our complimentary drinks we were told it was tea or coffee. Was this a joke? We get tea and coffee in our room and the kids don't drink tea or coffee. On a weekend the bar is very loud, although there is a notice in the room letting you know about it, why is it when you are in your room you are notified of this? Could you not state this on your website or when booking? The hotel is overpriced in the bar, restaurant and rooms. The cleaning standards need to dramatically...